The present invention relates generally to a system and method for managing information or data and, alternatively, such a system and method for generating, monitoring, managing and/or otherwise maintaining certain aspects of a contract relationship. The present invention is particularly adapted to a system and method for generating, managing and/or monitoring a purchasing contract relationship such as a bulk purchasing contract between a common carrier entity such an airline operator and a customer entity. Further, the inventive system and method are particularly adapted for implementation via or on an electronic environment such as any client-server system including those incorporating terminals, personal computers, digital personal assistants and the like, the Internet, or an Intranet.
Businesses reward customer volume buying with discounts or deals. Contracted deals comprise one or more purchasing requirements, or terms, for volume buying. Contract terms may include commitments for the purchase of a specified number of units, or the expenditure of a monetary amount, or that a designated share of a company's purchasing be dedicated to a specified supplier. Each party seeks financial gain from the deal. The supplier seeks to increase volume and to generate higher unit sales and profits. The customer seeks to lower costs through discounts.
In a global business setting, suppliers often form alliances to provide services to customers worldwide. Alliance deals involve contract terms from two or more suppliers. Both suppliers and customers benefit from alliance deals. A supplier can extend its services into markets which it would not ordinarily serve but which may be served by an alliance partner. Customers, on the other hand, are able to consolidate their global purchasing volume to benefit from worldwide discounts with a reduced number of suppliers.
Many of such contractual relationships necessarily require management of certain aspects of contracts in an electronic or computerized environment. Although the utilization of electronic or computer networks facilitate the various contract management processes, it can present certain challenges as well. For example, more than one distributor will probably be authorized to sell products to a customer. Accordingly, a supplier will collect contract-related information from more than one source and will often receive the information in raw or non-standardized form. In addition, suppliers and distributors are often located in different parts of the world and may use different systems which produce incompatible electronic transactions.